


lost (to those I thought were friends)

by BlackJacketsandPens, Redbudtree



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Implied/Referenced Sex, M/M, Violent Sex, also enjoy the headcanons, laha and emet are terrible and sad old men, some violence!, unhealthy coping mechanisms and crumbling relationships ahoy!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:42:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22720432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackJacketsandPens/pseuds/BlackJacketsandPens, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redbudtree/pseuds/Redbudtree
Summary: But we carry on our back, the burden time always revealsIn the lonely light of morningIn the wound that would not healIt's the bitter taste of losing everythingThat I've held so dearEmet-Selch and Lahabrea, and the slow downward spiral of a relationship.
Relationships: Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Lahabrea
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	lost (to those I thought were friends)

They held hands, when their world ended and while they burned.

Long after any other sensation faded with the agony of his physical form being torn apart, with the horror of the universe itself trying to rip him into fourteen pieces, Emet-Selch felt that hand in his. An anchorpoint, something to focus on, gather all his immense will and cling to that hand, to that crimson soul, and _not fade away_ , not be _torn apart_. That hand, Lahabrea’s hand. The hand of the only one the other had left in all these newly shattered worlds. He had lost his family, a little girl dead in the streets and a wife given to their god in the second wave of willing sacrifices, and Emet-Selch? He had lost _her_ , lost his beloved, and lost Hythlodaeus as well, his very own brother.

Now it was only them. Only them, and Elidibus. Three souls left unbroken, and...at least,

Emet-Selch thought despairingly, a bodiless and drifting soul still clinging to the one beside him...at least he would not be _entirely_ alone in his despair. Lahabrea was here. Lahabrea would help him fix this. And then they could both have again what they lost...in the meantime, as always, they would have each other. He could not remember a time he did not know Lahabrea, after all, his dearest friend. The only other he would call beloved, besides _her_. If She was to steal one of them away, at least...at least he had _him_ in this new and broken hell.

Beside Emet-Selch, aether still halfway-entwined with his dear friend, Lahabrea takes stock of himself. Bound up together as they are, they do not require words to communicate; a fortunate thing, given they had no means to produce them with their physical forms burnt away into nothing and scattered across the now-broken world. The Speaker seems strangely collected, given their situation. His thoughts are focused primarily on ensuring the most important pieces of himself have held together, and he radiates a clinical sort of curiosity at the very concept of being disembodied.

Communicating without words, he tugs Emet-Selch’s attention to a small island adrift in the abyss with them, and with barely a hesitation carries himself toward it, demeanor growing impatient as it takes longer than he had thought it would. A desire to communicate, to plan, to inspect the damage done to their star shines bright and hot within him; if he is as overwhelmed as Emet-Selch, then he is attempting to turn it into something proactive, refusing to allow himself the chance to emotionally process what has just happened. He had examined their condition and the state of the world below, and is attempting to view it through the lens of a project gone awry --- which, admittedly, is not entirely incorrect.

And yet, even as he strides forward, chasing ideas and seeking to gather himself enough to carry on, he never once loosens his grip upon Emet-Selch. If anything, he only tightens it; one last bulwark against the horrors that have stripped everything from them, even themselves.

Emet-Selch hears and feels Lahabrea with no need for eyes, no need for ears; their souls are tied together in their desperation, their fear and need to not be alone, the residual aftermath of clinging so tightly to remain whole. He sees the place within the rift indicated, shattered shards of dark violet rock, and though he does not know, neither of them know, what it means, he senses Elidibus’ battered golden soul there as well and so he follows Lahabrea. While his companion, his friend, radiates a fierce and unhappy desire to move forward, think, plan, gather himself up in a scholar’s logic and desire to remedy that which had failed in their project--- he aches, he hurts, he fights to focus on that soul tied to his, focus on Elidibus ahead. Anything but the sight he had witnessed, anything but the sight burnt into his memory. So many souls, torn apart, the Underworld itself screaming in agony as it was split and shattered by that blasted goddess...he has not his dear friend’s clarity of focus. He is too sensitive, and always has been, and so he leans on him, letting that focus and drive carry him with it.

It is with horror and shock that they gaze out upon the remnants of their home, ten and three shards split off from their source--- diminished, broken, fragile ribbons of an Underworld that used to be an ocean filled with shimmering suns, and now all he can see is countless guttering candles, the gentle flow of them frothed into whitewater rapids, so fast--- _too_ fast. Had he a body, it would send him into tears of disgust and despair, and so he is glad he does not any longer.

But that relief is short lived--- they cannot _survive_ without forms, not if they wish to walk upon these broken worlds. They watch their essences flake and fall away, little bits of gold and crimson and tyrian, and Emet-Selch knows that they cannot afford to allow that; where will they go? If not to His embrace, than to _Her_ , to that terrible diminished and broken Underworld, and the thought makes him ill. And if they are gone, then--- no. They cannot be gone. Will not be gone.

It is that panic that drives them towards bodies, living forms with those faint candles for souls, shards of what they once were and so easily pushed out and into that fast-flowing stream that he cannot bear to look at. None of the three of them look too hard at what they take, and he finds his form different, small, overwhelmingly diminished in all things, and--- and it is nothing like any he recalls, looking so different, so...feline. Foreign ears twitch and bizarre tail flicks, but he doesn’t care for the moment; even as this body is tight and uncomfortable and not his own it is still physical, and he gasps in breaths and shoves hair (longer than his, dark where his once was white) out of his face as he looks around in fright and worry. “Elidibus!” He calls, hissing his words in a voice that is not his own. “Lahabrea!” He pauses, and quieter: “Apollo? Hephaestus?” Sentiment overrides propriety for that moment, and his stolen heart hammers in his chest; are they well, did they make it in time? He cannot be alone, he cannot bear that.

“Here,” a voice calls, alien and unfamiliar despite the fact that it is their own language it is speaking in, and a form, short and fragile in build steps around a tree on unsteady legs, tail nearly tangling between them. Voice and physical appearance give no clear indicator of the soul possessing the body --- soft violet hair and wide blue eyes caught in an expression somewhere between confusion and growing horror. “You’ve yet to be rid of me, Hades,” the speaker continues, his fondness outing him as Lahabrea even as he stumbles forward and catches Emet-Selch’s borrowed hand in both of his slightly-smaller ones, hissing something unpleasant when his tongue catches on too-sharp teeth. “ _Damn_ Hydaelyn,” the Speaker swears, tightening his grip as his expression turns into a scowl. “This is going to make things _difficult_.”

Tugging his hands away again, he steps --- hops, really --- over a fallen log and waves a hand at the world around him, at the distant glimpse of a clearing beyond the trees. In the middle of it are perhaps a dozen small, crude, temporary shelters, that even from here look as though they won’t last a year, let alone the comparatively-larger century. “Look at this,” Lahabrea says, and despite the vessel’s voice he sounds like himself. He is a professor again, staring at a student’s poorly-executed Concept; one of the rare failures that made it all the way to full Creation before a critical flaw was found, and he means to lecture. “What sort of solution was _Sundering_ our Star? Her interference has destabilized everything we fought so hard to save!”

From his expression, it’s clear he’s been saving up this lecture since the Sundering itself, and there will be no stopping him once he’s begun. “Fourteen smaller shards are more vulnerable to being knocked off-balance,” the Speaker snaps, turning to the log he had just stepped over and breaking a twig off of it. He rolls the stick between his fingers like a presentation pointer, beginning to pace. “And that’s to say nothing of what She has done to the life upon this Star; how is anything going to survive when left so weakened and--- and ignorant? The youngest children could create dwellings more robust than those you see out there.”

Lahabrea’s voice wavers, suddenly, borrowed blue eyes filling with the emotions he’s been trying to push away, and abandoning his lecture and impromptu pointer alike, he turns and throws himself at Emet-Selch, wrapping his arms around him and burying his face in his vessel’s chest as he begins to shake. “We must needs _correct_ this, Hades. As soon as possible. The Star cannot survive another Terminus, and mark my words one _will_ come, if we cannot restore Him to his rightful place. This usurper that the discontented have created will never be strong enough to prevent it. She cannot be allowed to linger!”

Emet-Selch’s breath has long since stopped, or at least caught in his throat at his companion, his dear friend’s appearance. They are so changed, so different, in these bodies not their own! And the little ramshackle--- thing that passes for a settlement, it--- he stares at it blankly, at the fractured and broken souls within, tiny and flickering, small and...no, not even stars, barely candles compared to the suns they once had been, shattered and broken and _wrong_. He only half hears Lahabrea’s rant, his lecture, like any of countless made in lecture rooms and the Hall of Rhetoric alike, so caught up is he in the horror of it.

But what he does hear, he agrees with, and he catches up Lahabrea in his arms when the other throws himself at him, wrapping arms around him and pulling them both to the ground, cradling him and making soft keening noises of barely-contained distress. “I know,” he manages. “I know. We must--- we _must_ rectify this mistake, this-- this _horror_. They are broken, incomplete, not what they should be, you cannot _see_ it, Hephaestus, this is--- this is a _tragedy_ , this is worse than that, this is a monstrosity that should _never_ have occurred, and we must--- we must make it right, for their sakes, _stars_ , look at them, _look_ at what they’ve been reduced to…” Fragile empty little things barely alive, barely real--- it is like watching an arm attempt to move and exist separate from its body, macabre and horrifying. “We--” His voice breaks and he looks up, seeing Elidibus finally approach, golden soul visible beneath the skin he wears, another feline-thing like them with green-tinted hair. “We must find the others,” he manages. “That--- they--- the others. Restore the Convocation. We cannot allow them to... _live_ like this. We _need_ to...if they yet---” If the others yet exist somewhere, souls shattered like the rest of their star, they need to find them. They too are touched by His grace, and--- and together, the Convocation will be able to make this horror right, save all these broken things from such a terrible fate as this nightmare.

* * *

And they do. It does not go fast-- it takes them years, decades, and it is a nightmare of every waking moment they cannot find their compeers. One by one they are found, one by one they are restored to memory--- Emet-Selch finds Mitron first, a scaled being living quietly upon the Third, and forces his soul to touch that tiny shard, forces that shard to recall its former brilliance; it is a terrible thing, so violent, nothing like the way they once shared souls and existences together as one--- but it works. It works, and they know how to continue.

But knowing does not make any of it easier. They must still _look_ , and as time passes on these hideously broken shards it is made clear that nothing of what they once were remains. These little fragile incomplete lives live ignorant and unaware of what they once were, ignorant even of what existed before--- and they cannot grasp, they do not know, what beauty and splendor they are missing. They are tiny and selfish and short-sighted, and no matter how he tries, begs and pleads and speaks with every ounce of compassion and wisdom he clings to, they do not listen. They laugh, they scorn, and it is harder and harder to try and make them see. But he tries anyway--- part of him wants them to learn, to know; for if they can, then they might yet forge something good out of this nightmare, might they not? If even these broken things that the world has been given to can learn what it means to be as they were, then that...that will be enough, won’t it?

He learns over and over that he is wrong, and it is all he can do to despair at the sight before him, as one by one they regain their lost compatriots, and slowly they begin to form a plan. It is not a plan that sits right with him, at first --- his fragile hope is still there, burning palely in his soul --- but it is their plan. And if it is His will to be whole again, then who is he to argue? If He is whole, then there will be no need to accept what has become! If they can mend what has been torn asunder, then he need not worry about teaching these ephemeral, delicate, too fast lives anything. So it is with a new sort of hope in their hearts they set out to these little shards, hoping that perhaps with effort they can _rejoin them_. He misses Lahabrea dearly, every day he does not see him (and clings to him like a drowning man to driftwood when they meet)--- for even as the others are with them, it is not the same, and only one understands, truly; there is Elidibus, but he has taken up the role of Emissary to their God, and he is...not available. So it is just him, just Lahabrea, and they will...they will _make this right_.

Unfortunately, no plan, no matter how well-thought out, is without its hardships. They first decide to each take a shard, individually charting its course toward oblivion. But Igeyorhm --- ever eager to please and to prove herself capable of standing as the equal she should be, despite the handicap of her soul --- proves too rash, too overeager, and the Thirteenth is lost. Its destruction is an eerie mirror of Terminus, with twisted creatures devouring innocents and each other alike. They are all shaken by this result. Shaken, and frightened, for with an entire shard lost and unable to be rejoined, can they yet manage to achieve their goal? It’s a horrific thought, and as a group they decide that precautions _must_ be taken. Igeyorhm is placed under Lahabrea’s supervision, his exacting standards meant to serve as a foil to her more impulsive decisions, and they reorganize the means through which they will work to make the world whole once again.

If Lahabrea is either frustrated or disappointed in Igeyorhm’s work, he gives no sign --- nor should he. They are all that currently remains of their people, and one’s failure is everyone’s failure. They must hold true to what they are and not give in to such malice as the short-lived mortals inevitably stir up against one another. To not hold themselves apart is to be dragged into the muck, and as the last bastions of a culture otherwise forgotten, they cannot allow that to happen. Instead, he remains supportive and encouraging, despite the magnitude of the work ahead. Eventually, they hit upon a working formula, and it is there that the plan begins to take shape.

They begin to work in pairs; no one shard left to just one of them--- it is safer, this way. Checks and balances. And who else should be entrusted the Source but Emet-Selch and Lahabrea, the two unsundered, whole and strong and --- even if they struggle to maintain their values as the centuries drag on and on and on --- simply...more than the others. Elidibus does not leave the Rift anymore, leave their pocket of space they can call their own, so it is up to them to safeguard the balance, engineer just enough of a catastrophe to align with a shard’s fall to safely, _safely_ bring about a Rejoining. Igeyorhm works with them, Lahabrea’s protege once again, under his watchful eye, but it is both unsundered that maintain the project. It is a blessing and a gift to work alongside Lahabrea again, Emet-Selch reflects. He has too long been alone, and suffered for it, with no one to lean on, no one to turn to when the Sight gets too much or his entreaties fall on too many deaf ears. He has taken to living mortal lives, keeping the vessels he takes until they pass on naturally --- he does not like discarding them so quickly, and part of him still seeks worth in these increasingly violent and cruel and selfish broken things, and he can only truly look for it as one of them --- and it drags sharp claws across an increasingly pained soul, but...but now Lahabrea is here, and now it will be better.

Their first Rejoining --- aspected towards Wind --- is a resounding success, and such a thing pushes them on towards the second. As these tiny broken lives rebuild, build cities, build kingdoms, Emet-Selch’s current vessel finally passes on and he takes another, a warrior queen --- he has long since been inured to the strangeness of other races, other forms; he only recalls what he once looked like due to his uncommon memory, and he wonders if the others recall their own faces --- and takes to her life easily. It...he likes it, he finds. Building a kingdom, building castles in the sand. They will not last, no, but he can almost pretend it is like home again. Like Amaurot. It is not and no matter how he tries it will never be, but it...occasionally, it feels like--- not enough, but...something. Perhaps he will continue this, as time goes on, this building of kingdoms. It can’t hurt, if this works well.

Lahabrea works with him as he works against him--- slipping into rival kingdoms posing as an advisor, and together they forge wars, conquer nations. There is so much death and blood, and it does not faze him any longer; why would it? Even as the Underworld swells, engorged, it is still nothing like what once was. Millions of these flickering candles could drown it in their weight and it would still not match its former glory. It sickens him to look upon even now, makes him want to retch or claw his eyes out, so he does not look. He is not killing anyone, not really--- these are not yet people again. Broken fragments, wounded and raw. They are simply allowing this diminished cycle to continue, over and over as they live their mayfly lives, and one day they will be restored, and shine again like suns.

He does not see Lahabrea much, but he still does; as an advisor he brings his charges to the warrior queen’s kingdom, forging alliances and engineering betrayals, and it is a blessing every time he sees that crimson soul. He worries --- it is so often a different face, a different form, and he hopes his dear friend does not burn himself raw in his haste, but he trusts he knows what he is doing. And no matter what face he wears, he will always have the same sunbright soul, beautiful and as it should be in the wake of these paltry imitations. There is always a feast, when kings come to see the warrior queen Emet-Selch has taken on the role of--- always a feast, and by silver tongue or by feminine charm, he always gets what he wants. And no matter what else, he will always want Lahabrea. Physical form matters little to either of them, of course; what they do in darkened rooms after the other guests are sated and asleep, the warrior queen having satisfied them with drink and her wit and wiles both--- it will be the same no matter whose form they wear. Bodies and souls alike join as one, in a way no other can imitate; no one else will be able to be with him the way the other can. Not until it is all made whole again. In the meantime, this is all they have, and he will not let it go. He will cherish every stolen kiss, every heated touch in the dark when it is just the two of them and they can be themselves, be Hades and Hephaestus or what is left of them.

The second Rejoining, this one of Lightning aspect, succeeds. And then the third, this one of Fire. The flickering candles are three parts larger on the Source, but it makes little difference. They still hurt to look at, broken things they are, and it still hurts him to look at the...what do the mortals call it, now, the Lifestream? It is a fitting name for what it has become. A trickle, a stream, rather than the ocean that was once the Underworld. He has gotten good at forming kingdoms now, and he thinks he will keep doing it. This time as advisor, for now, he finds a man --- Xande --- and makes him an emperor. He supposes at some point he will slide into the family line, just to keep it running smoothly, but for now he advises, for now he runs it all from the shadows. He does not know what Lahabrea is doing--- he knows it must be something, something to help, but he has grown distant of late, ever more ferocious with his work, ever more passionate, driven, and he doesn’t think to let it scare him. He has seen Lahabrea on benders like this before, working upon projects until he passes out at his desk. This is just another one of those, is it not? It...must be. He cannot bear the thought of no longer recognizing the only one he has left in this shattered, sundered world. He already cannot recognize himself at times, tastes the poison that has slowly bled in and tainted his speech with sharp edges, tainted his mind with the same cruel and selfish nature, tainted his wit and teasing with malice and unhappy bitterness as he tries to hide the grief that has twisted his soul into knots, the despair that lurks at its edges. But he tries, just as viciously as Lahabrea works, to hang onto what little there is left of Hades. Tries to hang onto that desperate hope to see worth. Because without those two things, without that hope and without what’s left of himself...without Lahabrea, what is there left? His will and soul are bound and devoted to Him and that is how it will always be, restore their Lord and regain their world and people, but...it is a hollow victory if he loses what he has long clung to. And yet sometimes he is numb to even that. But--- still he works, tirelessly: because it will be alright, when this is over. He will make it alright. He must.

It is during the reign of Allag, the Empire rising to new heights and expanding its reach across nearly every corner of the globe, that Lahabrea at last seeks out Emet-Selch again. He stumbles through a portal in the middle of the night, hesitating not one moment before dragging a drowsing Emet-Selch into a sitting position and claiming his lips in a forceful, exuberant kiss. “Hades,” he says once he’s pulled away, using the other unsundered’s personal name for the first time in at least a century, “I’ve made a breakthrough. Up, come on, up, you cannot desire sleep so desperately that you won’t wish to hear this!”

Lahabrea laughs a little, the sound drunken, even giddy, and he pushes his hood back, revealing his current host’s neat black hair and long pointed ears. He’s been pushing his vessel past reasonable limits again; as he slips his mask into his hand and lifts his head, he reveals a face pinched thin from lack of nutrition, brown eyes bruised puffy with lack of sleep, and a grin that spreads from one pointed eartip to the other. “You remember Meracydia, don’t you? Of course you do, I know this Empire has been having difficulty there,” he says ,and waves a hand through the air upon the word ‘difficulty’. Difficulty is an oversimplification when the continent refuses to submit to Allagan rule, each of its varied cultures putting up significant resistance in its own way.

“I’ve come up with a way to use their strife with your empire to speed along the next Rejoining,” he continues, as eager to explain this as he was any new project back in the halcyon days of Amaurot. It would almost be a reminder of them, save for the fact that the Lahabrea of back then was never quite so set on singing his own praises --- he had been confident, of course, but it had lacked the edge of madness, of superiority and growing disgust that now creep into his expression. That madness colors his animated explanation as he explains. “You know the tree people, yes? Of course you do, you know everything your little sand castle gets involved in. I’ve given them the means to bring their god into reality; to _Create_ him, as we would any other concept. Their god will give them strength, causing them to offer more successful resistance to the invasion while all the while steadily draining the land of aether, rendering Her infestation that much more vulnerable to the Rejoining!”

It is late bordering on early when he is roused from slumber, tucked into his quarters --- he is still ruling, at this point, sliding slowly into the back end of middle aged but still handsome in this form, and he barely has time to yawn and protest being woken so rudely before his lips are claimed by his dear friend’s and he gasps into it, startled. It is a rough, forceful thing, their kiss, and he leans into it for a moment, desperate and hungry for the contact that he’s long missed--- gone are the soft and sweet things of the world before, but he is no less needy for it. But then Lahabrea pulls away --- says his _name_ , which startles him into silence long enough to listen. He is grinning, and there is a light in his eyes of pride and triumph that would once have been a beautiful sight, shimmering there as he speaks of his newest project, but there is a poisoned edge to it, that and his words, stumbling over themselves as he babbles on, rambling and ragged with something unsettling, too full of energy for such a thin and worn down frame. And what he says, is---

 _“What?”_ Emet-Selch demands, Allag-red eyes (the color of the soul he looks at now) blown wide beneath greying dark hair. “Slow down, stop, stop stop _stop_ ,” he manages, grabbing at the other’s collar in an effort to slow the barrelling train of his speech. He does not sound much like the Speaker, now, but...something else, and it twists his chest in concern and fear even as alarm races through his blood. “Laha--- Heph, do you hear yourself? What have you done, what sort of idea is this? Summon their god, as we did--- you _know_ now what that will do to them, not simply give them strength but _enthrall_ them!” He does not truly care for the safety of the Meracydians, of course; more broken souls to feed back into the Lifestream while they wait to be whole, that is all they are. But to temper them to their own god--- he has no idea what that will _do_ to those souls! “Are you certain this is wise, what of their souls after their death, will they still be tainted, have you tested this?” He shakes his head. “And more than that, did you not think to ask me before doing so?! It is _my_ empire they will attack! I have spent too long working on this for it to be lost at the hands of your secondhand Creation, Heph!”

He shakes him once, gently, and his voice softens with genuine worry. “I will admit there is merit,” he says, swallowing, trying to find the positives, trying desperately to hold on to some sort of old standard, what they once were. What they used to be for one another, running ideas past each other to check on their validity. “But have you tested this yet? And if this is the test why so large-scale? Heph, this has so little warning, what am I to do against such a beast as a Created deity? Your new project _cannot_ erase mine like that---” He swallows, fighting off protectiveness of this little sandcastle empire he’s had now for centuries. “...and have you told Elidibus of this? Are you certain that this will not _overtax_ the Source’s aether, rather than simply weaken Her?” He lets go to run a hand through that short dark hair, missing his true face not for the first time. “Perhaps you should...rest,” he says slowly. “Rest, for a time, and then look at this again with new eyes. Surely...surely it is not too late for that much?”

Lahabrea’s brow furrows, some of the delight fading away to be replaced by puzzlement, and he stares into Allagan-red eyes as though, for just a moment, he no longer recognizes the soul behind them. “A _brilliant_ idea, as I said. There is no danger to their souls; they are only three times rejoined, barely even pieces of themselves --- so what if one of their own Creations lays claim to that piece? It will not be enough to leave a mark upon the whole, once they are restored. Such an influence as even the greatest of these mortal Creations could never hope to overpower the will of a person fully restored, to say nothing of standing against Lord Zodiark’s might!” He frowns, pulling away from his compeer to instead pace the room. It’s as much a refusal to rest as it is an attempt to sort out his thoughts, but it doesn’t last long. He wobbles unsteadily as he spins on his heel, and finally drops to sit upon the edge of the bed again, something vaguely wary and even offended in his eyes.

“You _know_ me, Emet-Selch,” he says, falling back upon the title in direct contrast to his earlier use of the other Paragon’s true name. “I would not put such a plan into practice were there danger in the doing! Hydaelyn _must_ be burned out, and burned out as quickly as possible. If we do not act quickly, all of the caution in existence will avail us not. No harm will come from this; it will only bring us to the next Rejoining that much more quickly. And to answer your question, Elidibus has been informed --- I sent Igeyorhm to explain the process to him even as I came here to you. If all goes as I know it will, we shall draw the source into the throes of chaos at an unprecedented speed, and all without doing more than allowing mortal souls to do what comes naturally to them. It even plays off of your sandcastles --- without your empire to seize control and attempt to force their order on those peoples not yet folded into its school of thought, those cultures which are even now calling upon their gods to save them would have no reason to make themselves useful to our cause.”

There is something different about Lahabrea’s words as he speaks; some sound that is slightly off, or a cadence that does not match his normally-careful speech, and a flash of anger in his eyes that holds none of the good humor he once held, but he remains sitting on the bed, and never once looks away from Emet-Selch. “Must I explain myself again, or have you come to realize what a boon we have been given in our path to restoring our world?” He does not wait for a response, instead folding his arms over his chest and lifting an eyebrow, daring Emet-Selch to challenge him. “If this vessel is wearing thin, I shall simply move to a new one,” he says, something harsh creeping into his voice as he speaks. “Unlike you, I see neither point nor purpose in clinging to an individual identity the way you do. One might almost think you value this... _toy_ of an Empire more than you do our cause, the way you are so protective of it.”

There is something off in Lahabrea’s speech --- it is clear and eloquent as it always is, his being the Speaker, but it is...wrong, somehow, and it twists in Emet-Selch’s guts as he listens. This arrogance is new, this certainty that there is no error, no fault. It is almost reckless, and with the way his steps wobble and his eyes burn...he does not wish to believe there is _madness_ there, in his oldest and dearest friend, but--- “Listen to yourself, Heph,” he says, refusing to back off into the distance of titles, hoping to convince him. “I _do_ know you. You would never put a project into action without testing it several dozen times over, perfecting it, ironing out every detail. This is rushed, hasty. And without my permission, no less! You enacted this and _then_ came to me about Allag’s role in it, that is far from…I repeat again, what am I to do with this false god? More than one, if you deign to repeat this with the other Meracydian tribes? I cannot lose this empire just yet, you realize this! Your project _cannot_ destroy mine utterly; conflict, yes, of course, your ends are sound at least, but without time and preparation it will not be so easy to...”

He trails off at the anger in his dear friend’s eyes, at the harshness of his voice. “I care not for your vessel, Heph, it is your _soul_ that I---” He begins, and then his jaw audibly clicks shut at the open and disparaging _insult_. It shocks him, eyes going wide and lips parting, and then the poison in his gut bubbles up and before he can stop himself his hand comes up and strikes Lahabrea across the face, connecting hard with cheek and jawbone enough to snap head to the side. Even that action stuns him --- what had he _done_ , violence against another of their Convocation, another unsundered, against _Hephaestus_ \--- but shock at his actions is devoured by that insidious beast offense and anger, and it harshens his words and sharpens his tongue as anger flashes in his own eyes. “How _dare_ you insinuate that our cause is second to my desires,” he hisses. “How dare you imply I--- I am distracted, I am not working my own self to the bone to bring back our lost? That my efforts, my strategy, is lesser than your--- your ridiculous and frankly horribly reckless scheme to empower these broken little souls with Creation magic, to enthrall them to their own gods?! What if it causes another Thirteenth?! You are sleep-deprived and half mad with it, _Lahabrea_ ,” he snarls, snapping out the title instead this time. “Perhaps it is _you_ that is compromised!”

Lahabrea is completely unprepared for the force of the slap, let alone for the rage and offense in Emet-Selch’s eyes. After he is struck, he brings a hand up to his vessel’s face and cradles it, even as he turns back to stare at his compeer. There is something new in his eyes, now, besides the glint of madness. There is a new hardness, a new distance, and something akin to horror mixed with a strange and visceral longing. “...If that is what you believe, Emet-Selch,” he says slowly, and gets to his feet, “Then I believe we have nothing more to discuss.” He steps backwards away from the bed, never once turning away nor taking his eyes from his compeer. He holds himself stiffly, back as straight as though he were about to speak to the whole of Amaurot. He regards Emet-Selch as a new and unknown threat, rather than as a dear friend. “We shall see how well your empire withstands my creations --- and we shall see whose actions are more effective in bringing about the next rejoining. Once your precious, _meaningless_ castle has been broken into pieces, perhaps you’ll begin to understand the wisdom of my plan.”

Shadows bloom behind him as he speaks,and Lahabrea steps backwards into the portal, his eyes remaining locked on Emet-Selch’s until he has vanished from sight.

* * *

Emet-Selch regrets what he’s done almost as soon as he sees the new distance in his eyes, the new heaviness that was not there before, the weight of being looked at as a stranger, or worse, a threat. But there is no longer anything he can do: the gauntlet has been thrown, and there is no going back. Guilt settles heavy in his stomach, and he remains silent until Lahabrea is gone before burying his face in his hands and _screaming_ , a keening sound that has too many emotions in it to name.

The guilt remains, but it fades somewhat, replaced by that new anger, a new frustration, things he had never before felt about his dear friend and yet now burn hot and bright. He takes the challenge seriously, Lahabrea does--- there is not one _eikon_ (as they are dubbed) to contend with, but four, each one more powerful than that last and causing many, many a death, causing Allag’s atrocities in retaliation to ramp up step by step. Emet-Selch hates half of what his own empire does, half of the crimes it commits --- flesh vessels he cares little for, but to warp and twist souls, even these broken ones, is nothing like what he desires even now, terrible things he loathes but allows for their goal --- but they must, to protect themselves, to fight these new threats. With his aid three of them are sealed within a research facility, and the fourth thrown into the heavens as a new and shining moon beside where their god sleeps. All the while, as his vessel’s life ends and he takes a new one, to continue to pursue his _sandcastle’s_ longevity (it is a challenge, now, and he means to see it through), he and Lahabrea see each other sporadically. There are no kisses or kind words, not anymore, no happiness to see one another. They snap and bite and snarl, sarcasm and derision dripping like venom from their lips, and though Emet-Selch never dares to insinuate Lahabrea’s instability again, the damage is done. Everything they speak to one another goes afoul, now, and though he tries not to fall prey to it he does every time, bristling and biting back as Lahabrea’s own behavior worsens.

And then Allag falls, as it always was going to, the fourth Rejoining, this one of Earth, sending it crumbling into dust. Lahabrea finds him after everything calms, the two standing and watching the ruins, and this time when the condescension and vitriol pour from his dear friend’s --- is he, anymore? --- lips, something inside Emet-Selch snaps. He has had enough of this, he realizes, and he is moving and speaking before any frail remnant of civility and virtue can catch up, and all he wants is to _shut him up_. The kiss he slams into Lahabrea’s lips is violent, like a physical assault, and he grabs the collar of his robe to drag his taller vessel down into it. “Be _silent_ ,” he snarls into his mouth, letting teeth scrape against flesh, and he spins to shove him against--- something, a tree or a rock, he’s not sure, but it is there and useful as he pushes them both up against it, harsh and vicious, a hand freeing itself from his collar to shove his hood back and dig into his hair, clawed gloves pressing into his scalp as he tugs at the blond locks roughly. There is something in this, something that burns in his chest, sets the guilt heavy in his stomach alight with--- an emotion he does not know and cannot put name to, but it burns all the same, burns in his soul and his blood. “There are better things you can do with that _impertinent tongue_ of yours,” he hisses, heady with whatever fire this is that eats at him, makes the guilt and the anger rush in his veins like the strongest liquor, “than continue to _speak,_ Lahabrea.”

Lahabrea makes a sound as he’s forced backwards --- whether it is more words being cut off, or a snarl of his own is impossible to tell, and at any rate it doesn’t matter for long. The sound transitions into a moan of fury and longing, and he meets Emet-Selch’s kiss with teeth and tongue, arms coming up from his sides to wrap around the other Ascian. He digs clawed gloves into Emet-Selch’s back and pulls his face away, a mad light and a hunger in borrowed green eyes. It is nothing like the soft and loving gazes he was wont to give during tender moments, back when the world was whole. It is something born to this world, violent and demanding, thirsting for power, control, _victory_. “You will have to do better than _that_ to force me to your will, Emet-Selch,” he says, voice thick with hunger and fury and a desperate need. “I will not be so easily cowed, be it to silence or another’s pleasure. If you want either from me on this day, you must _take_ it.”

Statement made, he pulls a hand free, reaching up as if to caress the face before him… only for his expression to harden as he digs taloned digits into the delicate skin of Emet-Selch’s cheek. “Come then, _dear friend_ ,” he continues, what was once an endearment turning into virulent poison flung from his lips. “And know that whatever we do here, it is in celebration of another victory --- _my_ victory.” His lips pull into a smirk as he taunts Emet-Selch, every inch of him daring the other Ascian to give in to the rage boiling inside him. To strike him again, as he did the night everything changed. Whether he believes he can emerge the victor in an altercation or gains some perverse pleasure in the possibility of injury, it is difficult to tell. Not that it matters which is the ultimate cause, for regardless the result is the same: the mad light in his eyes grows in intensity from a spark to a flame, and he throws his shoulders and head back, exposing the curve of his throat as he smiles a sharp-toothed grin. “Well, Emet-Selch? What say you?”

It is not the words that do it, but the tone of them, the hunger and rage and madness bleeding from each syllable. It is like nothing he has ever heard before from his once-dear friend, for he knows that what they once had is slipping through their fingers like sand in an hourglass, but it lights a fire deep in his core and he responds to it with eagerness and needs, just as much fire and fury as he snarls and rips Lahabrea’s hand away from his face, leaving trails of blood running down his cheek. “Take it I will, _Lahabrea_ ,” he says savagely. “ _Dear friend_. This will be your last victory against _me,_ won fairly or taken. _Watch_.” That said, or rather spit out, breath coming heavy and fast as he digs his own clawed fingers into the hand he still grips too-tight in his, and he lunges forward to sink his teeth into the exposed crook of the other man’s neck and collarbone. It is an animal motion, but he doesn’t care, pulling back and spitting out Lahabrea’s blood before catching his lips again in another violent kiss, so that they both taste copper. He imagines he tastes poison, too, thick and bitter; there is no coming back from this, and guilt chokes him, but he shoves it aside in the heat of the moment, the burning need and anger and venom, the desire to hurt him, make him stop speaking, wipe that mad grin off his face.

He spins Lahabrea to the side, then, rocking his body forward so that they tumble hard to the ground, and the hand that is not still crushing the other man’s in its grasp comes to wrap around his throat, digging claws into flesh and pressing hard against the sluggishly bleeding bite mark. He straddles him, his old dear friend who is not anymore, who is a mad-eyed stranger with a too-wide grin and rage burning in his soul, and pins that arm to the floor before he trades hand on neck for another kiss, biting and full of teeth and intent to draw blood, now free fingers going for the cloth of his robe, fumbling and aggressive. This is nothing like what they once had, what they once did. Not even with any of his mortal trysts did he act like this--- violent, angry, animal and hungry. It frightens him, even through the haze of need and fury, but he ignores it. This is the end for them, then. Whatever was left of who they once were dies here today, or begins its slow and ugly death throes. But it doesn’t matter, does it, he decides, finding bare skin beneath dark robes and digging those clawed gloves in deep, dragging them across flesh. As long as they succeed in their goal, as long as they bring Him back, bring back their people, it matters little what becomes of them in the doing. This is their final great work, the restoration of all that was, all that should be. Their lives are meaningless in comparison, so--- so it does not matter how far they fall.

That thought is freeing, in a way, and he laughs into Lahabrea’s bloody lips, a despairing madness of his own in the sound. His hand continues its way down the other man’s body beneath the robes, leaving bloody scratches in its wake, and finds what it seeks, gripping it tightly and digging claws into its length. “Tell me to stop and I will,” he gasps out into the kiss, still half snarling the words in need and hunger. _“Beg_ me.” He tightens his grip both above and below, feeling claws pierce the flesh of Lahabrea’s hand and dig deep, and his eyes burn as he finds those unfamiliar eyes of the man beneath him and holds them. “Beg me, _Speaker_ , and only then I relent,” he whispers, almost enjoying this feeling of power he has over him right now, enjoying--- what has he become? He feels filthy, debased, _wrong_ , for never in their home, their utopia, had it been like this, and never would they dare even consider it, but at the same time he does not care. He cannot, not anymore. So he does not stop, will not stop, not unless he gets what he wants. What that is, he--- he cannot say. A victory, control, power, or something to make the guilt unknot itself from his chest...but does it even matter what it is, as long as he gets it? He can lose himself in this hunger, this violence, this twisted and poisoned intimacy, and forget all else, and so he will.

If Lahabrea feels any guilt for the way their relationship is entering its death throes, he gives no sign. All he does is lean into the pain, giving back what scratches he can with his as-of-yet unrestrained hand, pressing into the kiss and arching his back in a mix of ecstasy and agony. His lips part as he pants for breath, a denial escaping him in a thin whine. “ _No_ ,” he forces out, dragging his free hand up Emet-Selch’s back and burying it in his hair, where he digs claws into his scalp and yanks on it, attempting to tear away skin and hair alike. “Do,” he begins, the words catching and turning into a moan as he squirms underneath the other Ascian’s ungentle ministrations. “Do not think… I will _beg_.” Spitting the word beg out along with a mouthful of blood, he tugs sharply at the handful of hair he clutches and draws a breath, gathering all of his strength to tear his hand free, heedless of claws sliding through muscle and between bone. “I yield to _no-one_ , least--- least of all one who--- _aaaah_ ,” he gasps. For though he has torn his hand away, the other grip yet holds him in place, and the green eyes of his vessel shine bright with the pain of it.

His sentence ended abruptly, Lahabrea swallows, bloodied throat working visibly as he fights against physical reactions to try and form words. “Play with… with little kingdoms and toy--- toy soldiers, Emet-Selch,” he stutters out, all eloquence gone in this face of this bloody, ugly moment of debasement. “You may command--- them--- but never me.” Gaze hardening even as his breath heaves, Lahabrea leans in for another bloody, vicious kiss, and repeats himself. “ _Never me_.” Then he releases Emet-Selch’s hair and shoves at him with both hands, never mind that one is mangled and useless, heedless of the damage such an action will cause to his most intimate areas. Borrowed flesh tears and a keen of utter agony escapes the battered Speaker, but nonetheless he refuses to surrender.

There is something utterly--- utterly sensual in the way Lahabrea bucks and heaves for breath under his hands, in the way he is undone in his words despite his refusal to surrender. Emet-Selch laughs again, letting him tear his hand away and watching it bleed, moaning in something like pleasure as his own skin tears beneath the other man’s claws. But it ends abruptly and he is shoved back, tearing at the flesh beneath his hand and coming back slick with blood and other things, a final mad, despairing laugh bubbling up in his throat as he rocks back on his haunches. “That---” He says, his own breath quick and heavy, “---is a challenge I will accept, Lahabrea. I--- I will make you _beg_ one day, of that--- of that you can be _certain_.”

He hates this. He hates himself for doing this. He hates seeing his hand bloody, the ground bloody, tasting and smelling copper and seeing the man he once loved beneath him debased and battered, broken and alight with madness and fury and desire alike. He loathes himself, suddenly and viciously, loathes all that they are becoming in this fight towards their noble goal, loathes that they are become rabid animals like these incomplete souls around them, selfish and cruel and poisoned--- but at the same time he does not _care_. Let them become animals, let them become monsters. Who is left to care? All that matters is His will, their goal, their Rejoinings, all that matters is making it all _right_ once more. If it is their fate to end when their utopia begins anew? So be it. He does not care so long as everything is once more as it was always meant to be. So...if he does not care, then he does not care what he has become. His people are all that matters. He does not. _None_ of them do.

And if none of them matter, than whatever they do to each other --- to themselves --- does not matter, either. If he leaves Lahabrea there eventually, bleeding and barely conscious, to extricate himself from a vessel that is quickly ceasing to be viable--- it doesn’t matter. If he discards his own vessel in the most painful and violent way he can think of, once he is alone--- it doesn’t matter, either. This really is _freeing_ , he thinks, this...this realization. Nothing he does to himself, to the others, nothing any of them do to one another _matters_ , so long as they achieve their goal and set right the mistake that never should have been made. Of course he will continue his sandcastle kingdoms, of course he will continue to live long lives that are not his own --- he cannot cut away that tiny fragile flame of hope in his breast, no matter what else he does, so he seeks and searches; perhaps it is because of this revelation he’s had, that he searches knowing it is futile, perhaps it is just another way to wound himself further in the way he deserves --- but he does not care what happens to him otherwise. At least the pain, the guilt, at least all of it distracts him from having to _see_.

* * *

And so it goes over the centuries. His empires rise, they fall, the Rejoinings continue apace, and bit by bit they lose themselves further. Sometimes he sees Lahabrea often, sometimes little and less at all. Most of their meetings go sour in moments, now, if not sour from the start, and many of them end as did their meeting after Allag’s fall, bloody and slick with sweat and fluid, torn up and spent even if they do not simply tear each other’s vessels apart to the point of abandonment. Sometimes he begins to think he is sought out only to do such things, to hurt and harm and tear him apart, and any mocking words are just an excuse to start again their violent, animal battle for dominance. It bothers him less and less as time goes on. After all, he takes out his own self-loathing, his own festering guilt, on Lahabrea as well. The shame he feels for still hoping to find worth in these ephemeral, cruel, selfish little mortals, the shame he feels for caring about any of them that surround his vessels’ lives, the guilt and regret for even for a moment doubting His grand project--- he throws himself into Lahabrea’s vicious embrace in turn, bleeding it out of him every time even as he bleeds out whatever hungry madness now burns firebright in the Speaker’s breast.

The Rejoining of Ice occurs, the fifth, and then the War of the Magi begins after that. Emet-Selch makes his way now to Amdapor, loathing the black mages of Mhach--- he has never forgiven Igeyorhm her blunder, unable to tear gifted gaze away from the souls of the voidsent, twisted and corrupted and forever lost to their horrific mutations, and an entire city of mortals that build upon the backs of what she had done? No. So he will set up in its enemy, in the city of healers and white magic --- a council, he finds and founds, a little like what he once was part of, this sandcastle beside a sea of green that makes him nostalgic for a lover long lost, this one still perfectly preserved in his memory untainted by poison and untwisted by pain --- and when he finds that Igeyorhm herself is aiding Mhach, he knows Lahabrea is too, somewhere. Good, he decides. _Good_. They are at odds now, again, and it will only make their meetings all the sharper, all the harsher. Ruined as he is, as they are, he looks forward to it. It will make him forget the twinge of something strangely soft that catches him unawares as he stares out at the forest sometimes, watches the wild seedkin that live within it. He does not want _her_ tainted, too. So he will taint himself further instead.

The war grows ever more heated as time goes on, and eventually word is brought to Emet-Selch’s current guise of a peculiar prisoner of war. Taken with the rest of a Mhachi patrol, he insists he is actually a double agent answerable to a particular councilman, and maintains his story even after extensive interrogation by Amdapor’s top specialists. Since he refuses to change his story, the respected councilman is sent for, in hopes that he can either clear up the confusion or take care of the interrogation himself. There is no double agent --- it is only Lahabrea, come to Emet-Selch in a new guise and a more interesting fashion than seeking him out in his bedroom in the middle of the night. He waits in his prison cell, already battered with bruises, his current vessel squinting at the world through one gray eye, the other swollen shut and bruised purple with a rough-looking scab cutting through it. Despite the visible injury and the way he holds himself, occasionally doubling over with wracking coughs that sound wet and thick in the closeness of the holding cells, the Speaker is smiling.

“Ah,” he says, voice ragged and stretched thin, unwashed violet-black hair hanging around his face in filthy curls. “You’ve arrived at last. You certainly took your time.” There’s no real pleasure in his voice any longer, and no affection when he meets Emet-Selch’s eyes through the pars. What there is in its place is mockery and disdain, and the hunger for violence and misery that have dogged their encounters ever since Allag. “I thought I would be waiting ‘til the end of the Era,” he says conversationally, leaning back against the stone wall and making himself comfortable. “It’s coming soon, by the way --- already there are whispers, and I hear your erstwhile neighbors have been growing more irritable of late. How much longer can _this_ sandcastle last, I wonder? You’ve put so much work into it; so much oppression, so much faux-civility. A city of wonder, of learning…” He coughs into his hand, then closes his good eye with a sigh that sounds, for once, as tired as he is. “Why must you bother with this charade, anyway? Nothing you ever construct upon this doomed world will compare with what we’ve lost. You are wasting your time and everyone else’s --- do you not yet see how much more you could accomplish if you stopped playing pretend?”

“Shut up,” Emet-Selch snarls immediately upon letting the door of the cell slam shut behind him, standing over him with fists already clenched. This vessel’s fire-red hair is greying at his temples, or just beginning to --- hiding the white streak that he’s almost unconsciously begun to mark them with over the eons --- and forest green eyes burn with barely restrained anger. “So this is what it’s come to, now? I would think you had more _dignity_ left in you, Lahabrea, than to come to me already in such a state.” He strides forward, grabbing the curly dark hair and yanking his face to look up at him, lip curling in distaste. “ _Really_ now,” he says, dropping to one knee just close enough to the other man that it presses sharp and rough between his knees. “I’m almost offended. This is _my_ right, no one else’s.” He casts a very simple healing spell, just enough to ease away some of the damage but nowhere near enough to repair all of it. This is how it is, now. He’s lost the ability to care, care about much of anything beyond their goal, his selfish shameful hopes. The loss of this relationship is no longer even a moment’s thought, not any more. It is just...a way to vent, a way to bleed his suffering out, to bleed out Lahabrea’s madness for him. The familiar hunger stirs in his chest, desperate and twisted, and he tugs the other’s hair again, dragging his face close. “Everything I do, I do for His will, for our goal,” he hisses quietly. “Mock me all you like. But my _toys_ , my _sandcastles_ , are no better or worse than your little _pet deities_. I’m surprised you haven’t seeded any this time--- no one _desperate_ enough for you this era?”

He slams Lahabrea’s head back against the wall, then, and claims his lips in yet another violent kiss, drawing blood and spitting it to the side with practiced ease. “If it is to fall, it falls,” he says bitterly. “And we will Rejoin yet another shard, be one step closer. Far be it from me to _mourn_. But we shall see who falls _first_ , I suppose.” Those words have a double meaning, voice lowering and finding a sharp, growling edge; it is their game, their dance, that has yet to stop. A battle for dominance, for control of the board, control of the other. Twisted and dark, and so unlike what they once had, so unlike the people they once were. But he can’t care, and in this place that still twinges his soul with nostalgia, he _welcomes_ that difference, the indignity and debasement. Make him forget, make him only think of this.

And so it goes. He leaves him --- or his vessel, he doesn’t care if he abandons it here or not in the wake of their tryst --- spent and broken again in the cell, straightening himself up before striding off and making up some excuse or another as to whatever they’ll find there. So it goes; this era ends, these kingdoms fall, the sixth Rejoining (Water, this time, the set of six elements complete in some amusing fashion) takes place, and life goes on.

Emet-Selch takes time to himself, watching, waiting for a chance to take the stage again; empires rise and fall and he watches them do so from the Rift, letting himself drift for a time, forgetting all else but _rest_ \--- he has not let himself do this in some time, and it is needed. It does not help the same way as his twisted dance with Lahabrea does, but to sleep is to forget, to cease to be for a time, and it...it is necessary.

* * *

His next empire is in the north, in the cold and the snow, and he builds it from the scraps of Allag; Garlemald, it is called, and it is amusing, enjoyable, watching magitek glow and hum--- he still has a fondness for that long-ago empire, and this one mirrors it in miniature, him at the helm. It pleases him, as he sets his armies to conquer. He isn’t certain yet how he means to set off Rejoining seven, but time will tell, opportunities present themselves. In the meantime, he lives as Solus zos Galvus, emperor, and he thinks he quite enjoys this life. Lahabrea has been scarce, to his mild displeasure, but he’s sure he’s busy with--- whatever mad schemes he plans _this_ time, half for their goal and half seemingly just to frustrate him personally, as if their duel of wills is...worth that much.

It is then his first son is born, in this life--- he has had many over the eons, many families and many children, but this time as he holds him he _recognizes_ the glimmer of that soul, six times now rejoined, fragile and broken, a faintly burning candle but--- he recalls that hope again, that shameful selfish little hope. Perhaps this will be it, this time. It has been so _long,_ and they are near to halfway done, but...he should not doubt Him, doubt His grace, and of course he does not, but…all the same. There is hope.

It is late, past midnight, and he is again at his child’s bedside, lingering above his cradle in rumbled nightshirt; his vessel’s wife is asleep in the room adjacent, but he has again crept out of bed in the silence of the wee hours to watch his son sleep. He feels... _something_ , in these moments, something that is not the horror he has become, and he steals as much of them as he can, quiet and in solitude. He leans against the side of the cradle and strokes that downy hair on the boy’s head, his mother’s gold mixing with his own reddish brown to color it the shade of copper, and finds a smile on his face. There is peace in this, and peace is so hard to find and so fleeting, in this broken and feeble shadow of a world.

There’s a shift in the air, a dimming of the room’s faint light, and Lahabrea appears in a bloom of darkness. He takes two steps in Emet-Selch’s direction, then stops as something seems to come over him, chasing away the smug smile he had arrived with and replacing it with an uncertain, wondering expression. Moving to Emet-Selch’s side, he pushes his hood back and removes his mask, revealing long blond hair several shades too dark to be like his own, and hazel eyes that bear flecks of blue and green within a warmer brown base color. “...Mine apologies for the interruption,” he says, and the voice that is usually full of arrogance and disdain holds a note of sincerity and longing as he stares at the cradle, and at Emet-Selch leaning over it in turn. “I’ve no desire to wake the child,” he adds, and there’s a catch to his voice that visibly takes him by surprise, his shoulders jolting and eyes widening a fraction of an inch. “It’s a rare blessing when one so young sleeps soundly,” Lahabrea continues, a wistful expression on his now-unmasked face. He looks up at Emet-Selch, the height difference between his Midlander vessel and Emet-Selch’s own Garlean pronounced even with the taller man leaning over a cradle, and comes near enough to peer inside it --- but not near enough to touch either its occupant or the new father leaning protectively over it.

“...Fatherhood suits you,” he says, and for this brief moment it seems as if all of his madness has drained away, replaced by a sorrow so great it is destroying him. “You always did have a way with children.” For once there is no antagonism, no bitter mockery --- only something quiet and regretful as he looks at the sleeping infant with something akin to longing. “I--- dare not ask,” Lahabrea begins, stumbling over the words, something desperate in his eyes but also vividly, intensely _afraid_. “Not with what we have become, but--- mortal or not, this child is _yours_ , and--- it has been so long…” He cannot finish his sentence, his eyes misting over with a faint sheen of tears that he blinks away unacknowledged, but the Speaker’s hands twitch at his sides and his shoulders hunch with a pain and longing that run deeper than the feverish hunger that has defined their relationship for so long, now. “...What have you named him?” He asks,and it’s clearly not what he wanted to say originally --- but it’s all that he dares, now that things have become so twisted between them.

He feels Lahabrea enter, and his head shoots up, golden eyes wide and teeth bared in a grimace, anger and protectiveness bubbling up--- but he stops when the other man does, and they stare at one another. There is something in this night, in this moment, that...holds that quiet and peace even over the travesty their relationship has become, and for a moment he sees what once was. It only deepens as Lahabrea removes hood and mask, approaching with a longing and a sorrow that has been so long absent from his features, a catch in a voice softened from its usual harsh madness. Emet-Selch looks down at him, something soft and regretful in his own gaze, but it flickers again to his son, a strange sort of love bleeding in; he cannot truly love any mortal, not the way he should, but…this is his son all the same, his child. And he is seeing a ghost tonight. Perhaps they both are.

“...Avilius,” he says quietly. “His name is Avilius.” There is silence, again, after that; he knows not what to say to a man who is now a stranger to him, knows not how to be anything but what they’ve become, now. And yet...golden eyes flicker back up to Lahabrea, something in them that is a ghost of understanding. He remembers his loss, will always remember --- it was his duty to remember, even back then, his role as Emet-Selch, and his perfect memory is a gift and a curse both --- and so...he lets out a long, low breath. He cannot bear to trust him that deeply with his little one, even knowing, not now, but...but a compromise. He reaches out, startling himself with his gentleness as he takes Lahabrea’s hand in his, and slowly slips the other man’s glove off, tucking it away as he guides the Speaker’s hand down to stroke that soft head of hair.

“....one day,” he says quietly, unable to quite meet Lahabrea’s eyes now, instead watching his son sleep on unawares, watching their intertwined fingers. “One day soon, we will make this right, Lahabrea. And then all children will sleep so soundly again.” There are things they can never fix, not even with all His power, but...but some things will be made right again when they are done. And then no child will ever again suffer or be afraid, no child will die before their time. They will all sleep this soundly, in a utopia that never should have ceased to exist. Even with his selfish, quiet hope, he is devoted to that goal and that goal alone. To bring their people back, their home, and to make it so the suffering and cruelty that has poisoned them all no longer exists. And in this quiet, moonlit moment--- he can almost imagine that the future he envisions, the ideal world after their victory, has a place still for them in it.

Lahabrea goes very still as his hand is taken, hazel eyes flicking between Emet-Selch and the infant with a look of bewilderment mixed with hope. His hand, held firmly in the other Ascian’s grip, trembles faintly, and he looks as though he is holding his breath. As his fingertips brush downy-soft hair, he worries at his lip while tears fill his eyes and then begin to trace their way down his cheeks. He draws in a breath, an undignified sniffle escaping him, and he gently runs his thumb back and forth across the tiny, soft skull of the sleeping infant, eyes locked on the rounded cheeks and parted lips. “...Mortal or no, he is--- he is beautiful, Hades,” he says, Emet-Selch’s true name falling from his lips for the first time in millennia. “I.. do not believe there is any harm in cherishing one such soul,” he says, finally tearing his gaze away from the little one and meeting the other Ascian’s eyes again at last. “I… do not enjoy admitting this, but you have never allowed yourself to let these lives you lead interfere with our work before, and I trust you not to do so now. If you find comfort, in trying to care for one such as this --- I know you will not let it draw you away from our path. And,” he pauses, seeming to struggle with his words before continuing, “...I’ve not seen you look so close to happy since before Terminus began.”

Slowly, with a reluctance he will never admit to, Lahabrea stops his methodical, gentle rubbing of the infant’s head, tugging his hand free and away before holding it out, palm up, waiting for his glove. “I came in part to tell you that I’ve plans for the next Rejoining,” he says, swallowing back emotions too great to name. “It will take many years, yet --- likely most of your current vessel’s lifetime --- but once it is accomplished we will be that much closer to our greatest desire.” A future for their people, fought for over so many years that even the staunchest of their souls is beginning to show signs of wear, and for them? Rest. Rest, and the peace of knowing that there will never again be a disaster the likes of which they had to face. “Tell me,” he says slowly, turning his back to the cradle and the delicate, fragile mortal life within it. “So long as the damage is kept well away from the heart of your latest empire --- how likely is it that someone in this land could discover what Dalamud _really_ is?”

Were it long ago, he would have reached out to brush those tears from Lahabrea’s face. But it is not long ago, and they are not the men who could be so gentle with one another. Even what little they do now is a miracle, a moment caught in amber. So he leaves them be, and remains silent, accepting the words --- hesitant and civil and almost kind --- with a simple, slow nod of acknowledgement. What can he say to that? There is nothing--- he does not want to risk opening his mouth and shattering this truce. But he manages a shadow of a smile all the same, one that lingers even as Lahabrea finally slips his hand free and turns, forcing himself to look away in order to speak business. (He does not give the glove back.)

“...possible,” he allows, keeping voice soft. “There are many Garlean families with ties to Allag, and many of them ambitious and clever. With the right nudges towards the right ruins…” He hums softly. “If not here, then where?” He asks, already imagining the aftermath-- yes, he thinks, that is a Rejoining in the making. Five thousand years imprisoned...oh, yes. “A bold plan, this time,” he admits quietly, playing absently with the fabric of the glove still in his hands. “There are many in Garlemald who would agree to such a thing, if prompted with the right bait…” He tilts his head. “Have you bait to offer me, then, Lahabrea?” It is--- so strange, this civility, this truce, but he is so tired, and it is so quiet in this moment, that he cannot find it in him to dislike it. It cannot be what it was, but for the moment, they can pretend it is something other than what it is now.

“Eorzea,” Lahabrea says, both in answer to Emet-Selch’s first question and to his second. “Your Empire does not yet hold sway there, despite your recent gains in more local territories, and it is rich with resources these lands could never hold. It is only logical for Garlemald to attempt to take it for itself, especially when you consider how… _devoted_ its peoples are to the worship of their so-very-dangerous false gods. If the empire attempts to take it, the people there will surely strike back, but such scattered, fractious city-states as they have could never hope to hold you off forever. But if they _do_ make a go of it --- I daresay ‘twould be easily cleared out by unleashing the full force of Bahamut’s rage upon it. It would serve as a calamity great enough to serve for a Rejoining without threatening your current project, and in the aftermath you would be free to mop up and lay claim to the territory left in its wake.” He pauses, glancing briefly to the child in the cradle, and his lips twitch into a smile that is at once both triumphant and pained. “Or perhaps your son will. Imagine, Emet-Selch: you would be in a position for your firstborn to quite literally _inherit the world_.”

The Speaker falls silent then, even now knowing when it is truly best to stop talking, and steps away from the cradle and Emperor both, never mind the glove still in his fellow Ascian’s hand. He waits a breath, then another, and finally speaks again. “Regardless, you need not take action just yet. Enjoy this time while you have it --- you know well as I do that such sweet childhood moments are all too brief.” Lahabrea opens a portal behind him, and as he steps backwards through it, he drops into a bow. “And might I add --- congratulations, your Radiance. That is what they call you now, isn’t it? May your line be secure and your reign be both long and prosperous.” It is perhaps a bit tongue-in-cheek, but the words are sincere enough despite it, and then the Speaker is gone, soft breathing once more the only sound in the room.

“Ah,” he says, and his lips twitch up into a more sincere smile. “Your _eikons_. Yes, I believe I can work with that. We are not much for faith, us Garleans...they will fear that which they cannot understand, and seek to eradicate it for our own safety.” He nods once, briefly, at Lahabrea’s back. “A gift appreciated,” he says softly, and then his eyes gentle. “I cannot imagine that he will not rule it well, then.” He will have time. By the time they prepare for their eighth Rejoining, he will be long since safe within their tiny little mockery of the Underworld. He inclines his head at the congratulations, a smile once more flickering across his face at the bow. “I thank you, Speaker,” he says, something almost teasing in the words, and then he is gone, and the room is again silent.

* * *

Time passes after that. He has a second son, and both grow to adulthood. His eldest marries, and has a child of his own...and then he is taken, too soon, illness--- absurd, ridiculous, foolish and pathetic and so very _mortal_ , and he _feels_ his hope die with him. Grandson grows into adulthood himself, has his own child...and his plans set in motion. The eikons, the war on Eorzea, he sits back and ages and watches it spin forth. He watches the moon fall, wishes he could see it in person, but no--- he is old now, this vessel, and infirm, and all he has is his imaginings; what a sight it must have been, though, five thousand years of rage pent up. He wonders if Lahabrea watched it, in his stead. In the wake of their seventh Rejoining, things quiet down, go silent, and he waits in his final years for the perfect moment--- he has not named an heir, hating his grandson for selfish, petty little reasons and yet not wishing to name his younger son, either; no, he thinks. Let him leave this vessel with some small chaos in the making. A final revenge on an empire that took his hope from him (for he is no fool, to think his late son’s illness _natural_ ).

He hears tell of an Ultima Weapon --- Allag’s, he thinks, and smiles to himself; he knows whose hand _that_ was --- in the hands of his loyal hound Baelsar, and decides...yes. Now is a good time. It is with the ill news of Ultima’s destruction that the emperor leaves the realm, and it is with the ill news of Lahabrea’s defeat at the hands of Her newest Champion that Emet-Selch arrives back in the Rift. He itches, faintly, in his aetherial form --- as he always does after vacating a vessel long used, unused to a simple humanoid form instead of a specific shape --- but it is of no moment. He will be asleep shortly, after all, and then nothing at all matters. But...it is curiosity, and vague concern, that leads him to remain awake a little longer than usual, if just to seek out the Speaker. If just to make certain that Her Light had not...done something that would not heal, in time. No matter what things had ended up between them, he cannot recall a time when Lahabrea had not existed in his life --- and given his memory, that is a monumental thing to admit to. So...he investigates.

There are a few pockets within what amounts to their realm where one may go to find rest; to retreat when wounded or worn down from their tasks. It is in one of these quiet places that the Speaker rests, recovering from the ennervation dealt by Her chosen. He is, at present, not even utilizing a proper simulacrum of a form, and instead rests as a shapeless soul, the crimson center of his being scorched and irradiated along its edges. Lahabrea does not seem to notice that anyone has arrived here with him; instead his focus appears to be turned entirely inward, the emotions of guilt and shame and self-loathing so intense as to be easily picked up by any nearby soul. The Speaker’s aether roils aimlessly in his own misery, but his soul is nonetheless intact, as there is no true destruction of an Ascian who has been cast out of his vessel, only the loss of form and ability to interact with the physical world.

At last Lahabrea’s fury begins to ease, and he takes notice of Emet-Selch’s presence at last. The simulacrum he forms is shaky and appears insubstantial, but it nonetheless is serviceable for the purpose of communication. “Emet-Selch,” he greets, and his voice is barely above a whisper, weak and thready even if it is but an illusionary voice, this being a meeting of souls rather than of flesh. “So you have finished your part, then,” he continues, the red mask of his face concealing features that are not truly present. “Good… At least one of us can claim to have succeeded in his goals.” Lahabrea sounds bitter and tired, even subdued, and he clenches his hands into fists at his sides as though doing so would do anything for him. “...They’re giving Nabriales my tasks on the Source,” he says, and the shame dripping off of him is palpable. “Apparently I must recover before taking up my duties again. I suppose you’re off for a rest, now that Emperor Solus is no longer needed?”

The guilt and shame that bleeds off of Lahabrea’s soul, even when he forms a physical appearance for himself, makes Emet-Selch’s gut churn with guilt of his own; this is his doing, in a sense, and he well knows it. Lahabrea’s fall was of his own making, but it was he who lit the final match that caught him ablaze, all those thousands of years ago. He has well known this, and it sends a sharp knife through his being every time he is again made aware. “I have,” he says quietly, none of his harshness and venom in his voice; here he allows himself to sound tired and spent, here he takes at least one of his masks off, though the one of crimson still sits heavy on his face. “You put on a spectacular show, though, I hear,” he tells him, knowing it will slide off like rainwater but wishing to all the same. “Would that I could have seen it.” A brief smile twists his lips, but quickly turns bitter and wry. “Nabriales,” he scoffs. “Of all of us-- him? His talents pale in comparison, regardless of his expertise in time magics. And he’s sure to let Igeyorhm run wild, as well. It almost makes me glad I’m off to sleep. Let Elidibus worry about their antics for a time, it’s no longer _my_ business.” He knows his words are half in part a ham-fisted and amateurish attempt at comfort, but he no longer knows any other way to do so besides sarcasm and banter. Such is what they have become.

Though--- in the wake of that hot-bright guilt and shame, the knowledge he is at fault for it in part...his hand twitches, and it comes up as if to reach for Lahabrea, not in violence but in consolation, to soothe that aching soul, and the name of a man long ashes sits heavy on his tongue...but he swallows it, and his fingers again close as hand swings back to rest at his side. No; it is his fault, after all. He started this, he started the descent into what they are now to one another. There is nothing there that once was and he knows that--- he has no right to even play at being gentle any longer. It would only be an insult. He smiles again, instead, softly; his one concession. “You rest, too, then, even if I well know how difficult that might be for you, Lahabrea,” he tells him instead. “I expect to see you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when I wake myself, understand me? We’ll have plenty of work to do to clean up whatever messes we’re left with thanks to _those_ two. Rest, and heal. I will see you when my own rest is ended.” He bites his lip briefly. “....after all,” he says, more quietly now. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

It’s a weak, pale shadow of something said so many times in the past, their long gone happier days, but he says it all the same, and with an incline of his head he slips away to his own pocket of the Rift, putting it all out of his head as he settles down to let himself drift away and forget, let sleep wash away his despair and pain and guilt and the last decades of mortal life as he always does.

* * *

He wakes an indeterminate amount of time later, not by his own will. No, a familiar soul --- once golden but now nearly entirely subsumed by His shadows --- shakes him to waking far before he’s ready, and when his form is physical again, he irritably swats away gloved hand from his shoulder and glares at Elidibus from beneath the mask. “What,” he says flatly, voice rough from sleep --- it is not truly a voice, in this place, but it is one all the same, and he has ever been the most _alive_ of their number, in some way. “This had better be important, for you to wake me so soon. I’ve barely gotten any sleep at all.”

It takes only moments, after that, for his world to shatter. The Bringer of Light, he is told, has discovered a way to kill their kind. And so they have--- Nabriales, fallen in his hubris. Igeyorhm as well, both sundered souls lost to them in a way they have never before faced. There is silence, then, a pregnant pause in which Emet-Selch’s stomach drops in pure, blind terror, and he finds himself reaching to dig fingers into the Emissary’s shoulders. “What are you not saying,” he demands, voice trembling. “Elidibus, where is Lahabrea? Has he--- is he still resting? Where is he? _Tell me!”_

He is told. Allowed to return to his duties after Nabriales fell, to Ishgard under Igeyorhm’s eye after his failure. Not slain by the Warrior of Light, but devoured by a primal of his own making, the god-king the Archbishop Thordan had become. _Gone_.

He does not realize the sound is him, at first--- a keening, animal scream that bounces and echoes in the rift as he howls, tears slipping past his mask. He shoves Elidibus away from him as if burned, doubling over and wrapping his arms around himself as he wails. “You _let_ him!” He rages at the Emissary, who stands seemingly impassive. “He was wounded! He needed rest! He was in no state to return, and you let him do so! You allowed---” His voice breaks and he lashes out, lunging forward to strike the white-robed man across the face. It is allowed, and the quiet impartiality--- he does not know if Elidibus mourned, cannot tell if he grieves too; the other man has closed inward over the eons, and he can no longer tell if he even _feels_ anything. But he doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

Elidibus lets him rage, lets him howl his grief into the Rift until it turns to anger, and he shrieks it at a dead man. “You idiot--- you bastard, you _moron_ , you reckless selfish overworking--- how dare you!” He snarls out at nothing, at no one. “How _dare_ you leave me, how _dare_ you die, how _dare you make me continue on like this!”_ This is undignified, ridiculous, madness, but his despair and grief and rage choke him and he _screams_ it into an abyss that does not listen, does not care. How dare he? How _dare_ he.

It feels as if a hole has been punched clean through his soul, a place where Lahabrea was once and now is not, will never be again. A hole in the fabric of reality itself. He cannot recall a time he did not know him, a time where the other man was not in his life, his dearest friend, cherished and beloved as much as he had _her_ , before it had all turned to poison and violence--- and now he is gone. He is gone, he is _destroyed_ , never to see his own loved ones again once the world is whole once more. He will never see all his plans come to fruition, their goals and His return succeed. He will never see Amaurot again.

Emet-Selch will never see him again.

No matter what they had become, what changes they underwent that pushed them so far away from what they had been--- no matter how they spat and bit and clawed out their rage and pain and grief on each other’s borrowed flesh over and over again...he had _been there_. One constant in this brief and ephemeral broken world. And now--- and now he was gone.

He was gone, and it was wasted--- he had not reached out, the last time they spoke, he had not said his name, he had not comforted him, and now he never will, never can. Regret chokes him and he falls to his knees, keening as despair washes over him again, drowning the rage. “Hephaestus,” he moans. “Oh, _Hephaestus_ , why did you leave me? How could you?” How could he?

But he must move on, all the same. He must stand up, wipe away his tears, and return to the Source. He has a duty to fulfill, a goal he must stride forward to, no matter the losses and no matter what gets left behind. They will restore their world, their people, their utopia. They must, now. They are halfway done, and it will happen. It _will_. Regardless of his pain, his regret, his guilt and despair, the shattered hopes that litter the eons like ashes, he must carry on, for those he has lost, and the ones he can yet save.

He will remember the man that once was, and carry that into their new old world, their home and their restored people--- and when that is done, he will join his Hephaestus, and then they will rest at long, long last. Never again what was, changed far too much, but they will rest together, their task complete. So until then...until then, he walks on.

**Author's Note:**

> Suffer with us in this hell.
> 
> We're...sort of sorry it came out this long? Maybe? But it was well worth it, and we hope you enjoy it and our myriad headcanons.
> 
> Happy Valentine's Day! :)


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